Speakers

Damien Ashford is a PwC Partner and the firm’s Education Lead Partner. Damien has over two decades of experience in financial and operational restructuring, supporting hundreds of organisations with complex transformation programmes across the public and private sectors to drive financial sustainability and performance improvement. In recent years, Damien has helped numerous institutions across the higher education sector deal with the financial headwinds. He co‑authored the UK Higher Education Financial Sustainability Report commissioned by UUK and works closely with UUK’s Efficiency and Transformation Taskforce. Damien is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute for Turnaround.

Matt is a Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal and the sector leader for education in the UK. Prior to joining A&M, he was the CFO at University of Nottingham and Middlesex University. Previously he worked in the Department for Education overseeing £62bn of the education budget and led the restructuring of Further Education Colleges from 2016 to 2020. Prior to joining the Civil Service, Matt spent 12 years at PWC working on restructuring and M&A.

Joel leads SUMS – a not-for-profit charity owned by universities. SUMS comprises SUMS Consulting, SUMS Consulting International and SUPC. Across its divisions, SUMS now works with more than 200 member institutions.

A former Pro Vice-Chancellor, Joel joined SUMS in 2019. He has focused on growing SUMS’ ability to support university transformation at scale, delivering multi-stranded, multi-year transformation and efficiencies programmes: high impact at exceptional value-for-money.

Recognising that universities can’t just cut their way to strategic success, Joel’s practice areas include Target Operating Model and Efficiencies programmes, and providing expert advice on marketing, communications and student recruitment.

Charlotte is Policy Manager at the Higher Education Policy Institute, where she supports HEPI’s research and policy programme and leads on the HEPI blog. She works closely with researchers, policymakers and sector stakeholders to support evidence-led debate on higher education policy, and is responsible for commissioning, editing and curating HEPI’s blog programme.

Charlotte has particular experience in issues relating to access and widening participation. Her current policy interests include social mobility and inequality in higher education, and the political and public discourse surrounding higher education.
Before joining HEPI, Charlotte worked at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge as Schools Liaison Officer.

Rebecca Baxter is the Managing Director of NEUPC (North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium), where she leads a strategic programme of collaborative procurement and sector support across the region.
Rebecca is also Chair of UKUPC (UK Universities Purchasing Consortia), where she champions cross-consortia collaboration and sector alignment, helping to strengthen a joined-up approach to procurement across UK higher education.
With over 20 years of experience in procurement, Rebecca is passionate about driving value, innovation and positive change through partnership working. She works closely with university leaders to ensure procurement delivers strategic value, supporting institutional priorities, resilience and long-term success.

Professor Frances Bowen became the University of Essex’s seventh permanent Vice-Chancellor on 1 August 2025. An internationally recognised expert in corporate environmental strategy, she brings over 30 years of experience in higher education as a researcher and academic across the UK, Canada, the USA and Singapore. She joined Essex after stints on the executive teams of Queen Mary University of London (Vice-Principal) and the University of East Anglia (Pro Vice Chancellor). She has served on a variety of boards including a digital education start-up, international education entities, a technology transfer company, and a national environmental think tank.

Professor Boyle has been Vice-Chancellor of Swansea University since 2019. Prior to this, he was President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, and formerly Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He previously served as Vice-President of the European University Association and as President of Science Europe.
Professor Boyle currently chairs Jisc, the not-for-profit organisation providing digital services and solutions to the UK's higher and further education sector. He is also Chair of the British Council Wales Advisory Committee, The Conversation UK and the UKSA’s Research Accreditation Panel, as well as Research Data Scotland.

An eminent social scientist, Professor Amanda Broderick joined University of East London as Vice-Chancellor and President in September 2018. Amanda provides strategic and academic leadership for the University, with overall responsibility for over 2,000 staff and over 40,000 students, studying across UEL’s London (Docklands and Stratford) and Global Campuses and with academic partners. Holding Board-level executive and non-executive roles for over 15 years, Amanda is also Chair of London Higher, Chair of British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS), HEA Principal Fellow, Council Member for the Association of Commonwealth Universities and has held Professorships in International Business at multiple institutions in the UK and around the world. Amanda’s expertise lies in the fields of international business, marketing psychology and strategic communications with particular application to the digital and social business agendas.

Sophie Collet is Executive Director of Research, Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol, where she oversees the Professional Services that support and enable research and innovation. Prior to joining Bristol in March 2025, she was Director of Research and Innovation Services at the University of Bath. Sophie holds a joint honours degree in Psychology and Zoology and a PhD in behavioural ecology from the University of Bristol. She is a member of the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and has been ARMA Deputy Chair since 2024.

Sarah Cowan is Head of Higher Education and Research Policy at the British Academy. She leads policy development, analysis and advocacy on higher education, working closely with universities, learned societies and policymakers. Sarah oversees work on system‑level issues such as research funding, subject health, and regional inequalities in higher education - including the Academy’s mapping analysis of higher education “cold spots”. Previously, she led skills policy at the National Centre for Universities and Business, working with education and industry leaders on national skills challenges.

Thomas Estermann is Director for Governance, Funding and Public Policy Development with responsibilities for EUA's work aimed at strengthening universities' autonomy, governance, leadership, management and their financial sustainability. Thomas is actively involved in various European and national committees, expert groups, editorial boards, and advisory boards. He regularly contributes to higher education management programs and recently developed the EUA Leadership Development Programme. He has provided guidance in multiple national higher education reform processes in Europe and beyond and has authored publications on university funding, governance, leadership, and management. Prior to joining EUA in 2007, he held the position of Deputy University Director at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. He holds a master's degree in law from the University of Vienna.

Liam Earney is Jisc’s Managing Director for Higher Education (HE) and Research. He leads Jisc's engagement with universities as well as having responsibility for the development of Jisc's product strategy. Liam has worked in the higher education sector for over 25 years, with a long-standing background in licensing. His portfolio includes Jisc’s licence negotiations, as well as its work on digital transformation, research management and consultancy. More recently he has overseen Jisc's research into the opportunities for efficiency through greater sector collaboration, technical debt and the provision of digital research infrastructure, where his teams work with UKRI and UUK.

Helen Galbraith is Senior Pro Vice-Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer at the University of Chester. She has strategic responsibility for the student experience and oversees a range of University professional services. Helen joined the University of Chester in 2021 following senior roles at Keele University, where she served as Academic Registrar and Secretary with oversight of student welfare and support services, planning and registry functions, and corporate and academic governance. Prior to this, she spent seventeen years at the University of Bristol in roles including Director of Strategic Planning and Projects and Deputy University Secretary. She holds a PhD in Russian music and poetry. Helen is a longstanding member of AHUA and has been elected as the new AHUA Chair, taking up post from April 2026.

Dr Paul Greatrix is Director of Higher Education Consultancy and joined Shakespeare Martineau in August 2025 after over 35 years working in the HE sector including 18 years as Registrar of the University of Nottingham.

Paul is working with colleagues in the Education team to develop a suite of new services to support institutions in implementing their strategies both in the UK and overseas and in planning their responses to the challenging environment the HE sector is currently facing.

He has strong connections across higher education and previously held positions as an executive member of the Association of Heads of University Administration (AHUA), and as president of HUMANE, the Heads of University Management and Administration Network in Europe.

Paul is well-known in the HE sector as a blogger and podcaster and is seeking to develop this activity in his role on behalf of the firm. Beyond work he follows the sporadic successes of Norwich City, watches a bit of cricket and tries to read a balance of contemporary and classic fiction.

Melanie is a senior HE executive and recognised thought leader with extensive experience leading organisational transformation across higher education and industry.

She has driven large-scale change as Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University Dean, business owner, and senior brand leader. Melanie is currently Vice-Chancellor (interim) for the University for the Creative Arts.

She co-founded the Women and Leadership in the Creative Industries network, serves on EdCom’s board, and is committed to strengthening links between higher education and the creative economy.
 

Julian Gravatt is Deputy Chief Executive at the Association of Colleges which is the national organisation for further education and sixth form colleges in England. He is AoC's finance and regulation specialist and is overall line manager for the policy, workforce and area teams. He has worked at AoC for more than twenty years. Before that he was registrar at Lewisham College and finance director at the City Lit

Professor Jane Harrington joined the University of Greenwich as Vice-Chancellor & CEO in December 2019. She has worked in Higher Education for over 30 years and her specific interests include teaching excellence, widening access into higher education, inclusion and social mobility. Jane is passionate about making an impact through working in close partnerships across schools and colleges, business, community and the university sectors. Before joining Greenwich, Jane was Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) and previously worked in senior roles within the university’s Faculty of Business and Law.

Nicola Holmes, Principal Associate, Mills & Reeve
Nicola is a specialist competition lawyer with over 23 years’ experience. She advises on all aspects of competition law, including advising clients on how to structure their commercial strategies, collaborations, and trading practices to ensure they are compliant; providing merger control advice for complex transactions; and steering clients through investigations and market reviews by competition authorities. She also helps clients devise and deliver effective competition law compliance training. Nicola is ranked in the legal directories for competition in the regions. She has spent time on secondment to clients, and to the competition department of the Financial Conduct Authority, where she worked on one of the first competition market studies, into credit cards; and assisted in preparations for concurrency.

Nicola de longh is Chair of the Committee of University Chairs and also Chair of Council at the University of Gloucestershire. With board experience spanning education, health, housing and investment, she serves as Vice Chair and Senior Independent Director at Gloucestershire Health & Care NHS Foundation Trust, and Senior Independent Director at Connexus Homes. Formerly a global transformation lead and strategy consultant, Nicola brings over 20 years’ leadership experience in change, governance and strategy across the public and corporate sectors. She holds an MBA from the Open University and a BA in French and Russian from the University of Bristol.

Smita leads the team that works to shape the universities and colleges of the future by providing strategic advice and sector specific insight across all their legal needs.

Smita is a recognised leader in her field, specialising in constitutional, governance and regulatory advice which helps educational institutions thrive in a rapidly changing landscape. She has helped institutions to innovate and develop, to widen their reach, build institutional resilience, and deliver the best outcomes for students and other stakeholders.

Smita is recognised in Legal 500’s ‘Hall of Fame’ for education, and as a ‘Band 1’ lawyer in Chambers.

Sarah Knight is director of digital leadership and transformation at Jisc. Sarah and her team are supporting universities with their digital transformation using Jisc’s framework and maturity model along with research into international and transnational education and curriculum design. Sarah established Jisc’s student experience experts group, an active community which provides valuable consultation and dissemination opportunities for Jisc. Sarah continues to champion Jisc’s change agents’ network: to support staff-student partnership working on technology enhanced curriculum projects. During her time at Jisc, Sarah has led large transformation projects on curriculum and assessment design, digital capabilities and learners’ experiences of technology.

Paola Marchionni is head of engagement (digital transformation) at Jisc. Paola leads digital transformation programmes in the higher education sector, with a particular focus on libraries and senior institutional stakeholders across academic, student, information, and research services. Her work involves shaping strategic interventions, convening expert networks, co-creating resources, and fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing to drive innovation and change.

Clare joined the University in September 2023 following six years as UCAS Chief Executive. She is passionate about delivering reform and value in public services, and particularly, the benefit education can bring to both an individual’s overall life chances and creating a more productive society. She is privileged to lead the University during this time of considerable change in the education sector and have the opportunity to work with so many brilliant colleagues to further build its reputation in enabling great student careers and demonstrating how it can drive skills development in Gloucestershire, the UK and internationally. Clare started her career within manufacturing, before moving to management consultancy with Deloitte, then central and local government, latterly as Chief Executive of Worcestershire County Council. She graduated from Hull University in 1993 and gained a MSc from the Open University in 1998. She has lived with her family in the region for nearly 20 years and loves running.

Clare received a Damehood in the 2024 Kings Birthday Honours for services to Higher Education.

Professor Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE is the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, a position she took up in 2016. During Dame Sally’s tenure, the University attained a historic “double first”, ranking top of the two leading University league tables in the UK: the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 and the Guardian University Guide 2024.

At a national and international level, Professor Mapstone has also served as President of Universities UK for the period 2023-25, the Convener of Universities Scotland, Vice-Chair of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and as Chair of the International Advisory Board for the University of Helsinki. She is also currently Universities Scotland’s newly created Lead Member for International, the Chair of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) board, and a trustee of the Europaeum.

Before St Andrews, Dame Sally’s career was spent at the University of Oxford, where she was latterly Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education in the University, and Professor of Older Scots Literature in its Faculty of English, as well as a Fellow of St Hilda’s College.

Khadir Meer was appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor Finance and Operations and Clerk to the Board of Trustees in September 2021. He joined SOAS at a time of great institutional turmoil with profound operational, financial, and cultural challenges, and has successfully led a process of transformation that was vital to secure the future of SOAS.

Khadir came to SOAS from the London Ambulance Service where, as Chief Operating Officer, he delivered significant workforce culture, estate and infrastructure improvements and transformation, alongside leading the Service in meeting the huge challenges it experienced during the pandemic.

Prior to this Khadir held a number of senior leadership and delivery roles in the NHS and local authorities.

He is an alumnus of Goldsmiths College where he studied Sociology as an undergraduate.

Huw works at the IoE at UCLwhere he is on secondment from the Welsh Government. In his current role he is undertaking research and consultancy projects for national governments and associations. He was previously Director for Skills, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning in the Welsh Government where was responsible for overseeing universities, further education colleges and the wider post-16 education and training sector including employability programmes, apprenticeships and Careers Wales. He was a main panel member of the Education REF panel between 2019 and 2022.

Georgina is Acting Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Kent, and a Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology with research specialisms in leadership and innovation. She is committed to widening access into higher education, social mobility and inclusion, as well as continuous improvement.

Georgina has led a large transformation programme at Kent, and most recently is the Kent lead for the creation of the London and South East University multi-university group (name TBC) with the University of Greenwich.

Professor Malcolm Press CBE DL was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University in 2015, having previously held positions at the universities of Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester and UCL.

Malcolm is an ecologist who has studied the impacts of climate and environmental change in northern Europe and the Arctic, the regeneration of tropical rain forests in Malaysian Borneo, and the impact of parasitic weeds on subsistence farming in sub-Saharan Africa.

Malcolm is currently a trustee of the British Council and President of Universities UK (UUK).

Previously, he has served as president of his subject association, the British Ecological Society, and has also served as a trustee of UCAS, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and WWF-UK, a council member of the National Trust, and a board member of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education (IfATE).

He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 in recognition of his contributions to education.

Ben Vulliamy is the Executive Director at the Association of Heads of University Administration. He has over 20 years of senior leadership experience in a range of education sector organisations, membership organisations and charities. He has worked in the UK University sector since 2024

Emma Woodcock is Chief Information Officer at York St John University and former Chair of UCISA, where she continues to contribute to sector thought leadership and leads the Student Data Model Initiative.Emma’s career spans private sector, local government, and Higher Education, where she has developed deep expertise in organisational change, service transformation, and the effective adoption of technology. Her background includes IT operations, programme delivery, and change leadership, underpinned by certifications as an ITIL Expert, MSP Practitioner, and Scrum Master

Stephen Roper is Professor of Enterprise at Warwick Business School, founding Director of the Enterprise Research Centre (www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk) and Co-Director of the Innovation and Research Caucus (I&RC) (https://ircaucus.ac.uk/). He is a co-investigator in the ESRC-funded Productivity Institute. Stephen has spent over 30 years researching issues related to business growth and development, innovation, and innovation policy in the UK and internationally. Stephen has acted as a consultant for the OECD and the World Bank on innovation policy including projects in Austria, Abu Dhabi, Mexico, Israel, Columbia and Poland, Austria and Canada. His current work focuses on firm-level determinants of productivity, workplace mental health and the financial sustainability of universities. Stephen is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the RSA and ISBE.
 

Sam is Head of Education at KPMG UK. He has over 20 years’ experience of working with high profile public sectors clients, delivering large scale organisational redesign, merger, financial sustainability, operational improvement, core systems replacement and change management projects.

The work that Sam and his team are currently delivering, in partnership with a broad range of UK universities, is helping these important institutions survive and thrive in an ever-changing and increasingly competitive environment. Not surprisingly, given the current challenges facing the sector, much of this work is focused on helping HEIs achieve long-term financially sustainability whilst safeguarding provision.

Andrew is a corporate finance partner with nearly 30 years' experience spanning a wide range of corporate and financing transactions, including private and public company mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, management buyouts, restructurings and equity and debt financings.

His focus is on helping his clients to add value whether through acquisition, joint venture, fund raising or on exit.

Andrews client base ranges from start-ups and SMEs to large multinational corporations and deal track record covers a variety of industry sectors including manufacturing, education, healthcare, technology, retail and sport.

George Talbot is Acting Vice Chancellor at Edge Hill University. He is a member of the UUK Research Network and has chaired the UUK's PVC/DVC Research Network since 2024.

A Partner in KPMG’s Education Practice, Andrea has extensive global experience working in the Education sector supporting institutions to transform. With a focus on the student and staff experience she delivers organisational change across strategy, financial sustainability, operating model design, efficiency and cost optimisation, and digital transformation.

Andrea leverages her knowledge of and experience in the sector, with 10 years providing advisory support and 15+ years working in universities in Australia and the UK, to help institutions to manage the current sector challenges and ensure sustainability, while capitalising on opportunities to transform.

Professor Joe Yates became Vice-Chancellor of Wrexham University in August 2024, joining from Liverpool John Moores University, where he held senior roles in arts, social studies, place and partnership. He holds a BA in History, Politics and Media, an MA in Social Work, and a DPhil in Criminology and Social Policy, and previously worked for 15 years across social work and youth justice. At LJMU, he led Criminology, co-founded the Centre for the Study of Crime and later directed the School of Humanities and Social Science. A committed advocate for young people, he contributes to multiple governance roles and researches youth justice policy.